Hope for workers as minimum wage panel begins deliberation

Workers in the country may soon have cause to smile as the 15-man committee put in place by the  Federal Government on the implementation of the new national minimum wage for workers has started sitting.

According to members of the panel at the weekend, the panel has met once.

Confirming the development, a member of the panel, Chris Onyedika, acting general secretary of a faction of the NLC said it had started deliberations on the agreement reached between the Federal Government and factions of the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, in May, this year.

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“The 15-man committee will review the Federal Government’s liberalisation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, leading to the new fuel pump price of N145 per litre.

“The committees will discuss and recommend a new national minimum wage, the N500 billion palliatives being proposed by the Federal Government and the re-constitution of the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency Board, among other issues, before presenting its recommendations to government,” Onyedika said.

It would be recalled that the government put together the committee in May in the aftermath of the increase in the pump price of petrol from N87 to N145.

The NLC and Trade Union Congress, TUC, had proposed N56, 000 as the national minimum wage to the Federal Government, as against the current N18,000.

The National Minimum Wage Law, pegging the minimum wage at N18,000, was enacted in 2011.

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